"She knew him, then?" eagerly.
"Yes. I've brought both photographs with me." She took them out of the handbag with trembling hands and gave them to him.
He got up, took them to the light and held them side by side. "Yes, yes," he muttered, "they are the same—the very same. There's no doubt about that." And then, in a suppressed voice, "You know who he is?"
"Yes, Jeff. Mrs. Rumsen and I know—no one else—not a soul else. It's your secret. We couldn't tell. No one can or will but you." Her voice had sunk almost to a whisper. "It's—it's the General—Jeff—General Bent."
Outwardly Jeff gave no sign of unusual disturbance—a slight tightening of his thumbs upon the pictures, a slight bending of the head that his eyes might be surer of their vision. But to Camilla, who was watching him timidly, he seemed to grow compact, his big frame to shrink into itself and his eyes to glow with a strange, unfamiliar fire.
"General—Bent—General—Bent," he repeated the words huskily, as if they were a formula which he was trying to commit to memory. "It can't be true?"
"Yes, Jeff, it's true. Mrs. Rumsen identified the letters. There's no doubt—none."
"I can't believe—why, I'd have felt it—Camilla. I've always said I'd know him if I saw him."
"You didn't—but have you thought? You look like him, Jeff. You look like him."
"Yes—it's strange I didn't think of that." And then suddenly, "Does he know?"